ENVIRONMENT GLOSSARY

World Environment Day-June 5, 1972

• It is a day that stimulates awareness of the environment and

enhances political attention and public action.

• It was the day that United Nations Conference on the Human

Environment began.

• It was established by The United Nations General Assembly in

1972.

EcologyEcology is the scientific study of the relations that living

organisms have with respect to each other and their natural

environment.

Habitat

•It is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a

particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism.

•It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the

physical environment that surrounds a species population.

Eco-System

It is a biological system consisting of all living organisms or biotic

components in a particular area and the nonliving or abiotic

component with which the organisms interact, such as air, mineral

soil, water and sunlight.

Ecological Equilibrium

It is the point or period in time in which the state of an ecological

system is at climax, wherein it ceases to grow.

Renewable Sources of Energy

•It is the energy which comes from natural resources such as

sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat which are

renewable.

•About 16% of global find energy consumption comes from

renewable with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is

mainly used for heating and 3.4% from hydroelectricity.

Ecologically Sustainable Development

•It is the environmental component of sustainable development

•It can be achieved partially through the use of the precautionary

principle, namely that if there are threats of serious irreversible

environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should

not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent

environmental degradation.

Fossil fuels

•Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as

anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms.

•The age of organisms and their resulting fossil fuel is typically

millions of years and sometimes exceeds 650 million years.

•Contain high percentage of carbon and include coal, petroleum

and natural gas

Kyoto Protocol

•The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol of the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or

FCCC), aimed at fighting global warming.

•The Protocol was initially adopted on 11th December 1997 in

Kyoto, Japan, and came into force on 16th February 2005.

Brundtland Commission Report

•Known as the World Commission on Environment and

Development

•Its mission is to unite countries to pursue sustainable

development together

•In 1983, Gro Harlem Brundtland was the chairman of the

commission

•Brundland Commission was officially dissolved in Dec 1987

after releasing the Brundland report in Oct 1987

NTPC

•Stands for National Thermal Power Corporation

•It is the largest Indian State owned energy service provider based

in New Delhi

•It is an Indian public sector company listed on the Bombay Stock

Exchange

•Founded on Nov 7, 1975

ONGC

•Stands for Oil and Natural Gas Corporation

•It is an Indian state owned oil and gas company

•Its headquarters in New Delhi

•It is one of the largest Asia based oil and gas exploration and

production companies

•It was founded on Aug 14, 1956 by the Indian State

SPCB

•Stands for State Pollution Control Board

•Different Acts implemented through SPCB are:

Pollution control in 17 categories of highly polluting industries

Pollution control from industries discharging waste water into

river and lakes

Restriction of environment quality in critically polluted areas

ATF

•Stands for Aviation Turbine Fuel or Jet Fuel

•It is a specialized type of petroleum based fuel used to power

aircrafts

•It is generally of a higher quality than fuels

•ATF is clear to straw coloured and is a blend of hydrocarbons, a

product of petroleum refining which belongs to the middle

distillate group

Countries of the North and South

•The North-South divides as a socio economic and political

division

•It exists between the wealthy developed countries known

collectively as the North and the power developing countries as

the South

•The expression ‘North-South divide’ is still in commonsense but

the terms “North” and “South” are already somewhat outdated